


a thousand and one ways to serve eggs

by oblivioluna



Series: My Nemesis, The Bane of My Existence [1]
Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: "MY NEMESIS THE EGG CHEF", Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crackfic but not really, Dog Mentions, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Gen, Slap-Slap-Kiss, The Waffle House AU No One Asked For, egg woman x egg chef, there's a dog somewhere in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24148141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oblivioluna/pseuds/oblivioluna
Summary: Kieran slams his spatula against the counter. "That stupid egg woman is ruining my integrity as chef!""You have no integrity, and this is a Waffle House-""I KNOW."___(based off that one twitter r/relationships post where that woman's boyfriend keeps getting into fights with a waffle house chef.)
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White, Lauren Sinclair/William Hawkes (barely at all i swear)
Series: My Nemesis, The Bane of My Existence [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742629
Comments: 7
Kudos: 73





	a thousand and one ways to serve eggs

Lauren and Will have a tradition.

She doesn't know when it started, but she suspects it began way, way back in her early teens, when she began rushing to the police academy without heeding breakfast. A habit that continued into her early twenties when she continued to ignore her morning meals (read: one of the worst occasions was Tristan forcing her down for breakfast and her darting out the door without said breakfast. One of the maids had tripped trying to carry her un-eaten pancakes to the 11th precinct.)

(If you count one blueberry as breakfast, she technically has eaten one breakfast.)

So, now that she is twenty-five and three years wiser - well, not really, she might just burn toast enough to set off the alarm in her apartment building sometimes - Lauren has developed much healthier self-care habits overall; ones that include not working herself ragged and choosing healthier partners to spend a majority of her life with. Her past three boyfriends hadn't worked out, and when William Hawkes had appeared in her life two years prior, she'd made the decision to not end up in a complete disaster fire of a relationship and chosen the better option.

Bless Will's heart for going along with her annoying habits that still remain, though: particularly, the breakfast-food related ones.

When they'd moved in together, the blonde had discovered that Lauren had a penchant for eating breakfast foods at odd times of the day. Hash browns at 9 o'clock at night. Sometimes he would wake up to the smell of scrambled eggs and cheese omelets at midnight on the dot.

(They don't talk about that one time Will caught Lauren eating Froot Loops with milk out of a plastic bag right before her interview with Captain Dakan.)

(They also do not talk about the fact that she'd chosen to slurp them up with a silly straw like some sort of five-year old on a sugar high.)

It isn't her fault she's missed out on the finer things in life - well, actually, it is actually indeed _exactly her fault._

Texas is a blessing, however, despite the heat. It is literally all she could ask for, because the state that is home to numerous cows and numerous cowboy hats is also home to the infamous Waffle House, haven and blessed-be-thou overlord of greasy breakfast foods. She'd moved here from London due to her scholarship to the academy, and had decided to settle down seriously once she graduated alongside Will and Kym, the other half of their chaotic trio, or as Kym herself loves to call it.

Lauren may be a heathen with a penchant for eggs, but Kym is the lawless criminal known for watermelon thievery from at least 50 different grocery stores in Austin.

Which is why she doesn't take her friend to their daily Waffle House outings. Will had agreed to take her there nearly every day after his understandable outburst over Lauren's odd habits, and the one nearest them seemed to serve up acceptable solutions to Lauren's cravings. Unfortunately, it had burned down due to an accident - or an 'accident' the media deemed arson done by an oddly enthusiastic woman wearing ballet flats. 

Ah, Texas.

The Southern version of Florida, except without the daily 'Area Man Commits [Insert Oddly Specific and Weird Crime] Here'.

Now they have to drive Will's Toyota over to the other nearest Waffle House, which isn't near at all: it's approximately 30 miles from the city, in a dust-bowl area where there are no passerby around except the cows that drift through the land and occasionally interrupt traffic. She doesn't know about the quality of this one, but supposes it couldn't be this bad.

(This was the first mistake Lauren made in an instance of several, larger, bigger mistakes.)

"It smells like bleach in here," Will comments, wincing as the smell hits his nose. They're both in uniform, and she notices the wary looks the two customers tucked away in a plastic-covered booth throw her way, but she ignores it. Lauren takes in her surroundings: bright fluorescent lamps hanging over wooden floors; diner stools in straight lines wiped clean next to metallic, red-colored booths near the kitchens, white tiled-walls, and the familiar scent of what is definitely not bleach, despite Will's objections, floats throughout the air.

It's perfect.

(Second mistake Lauren Sinclair has made thus far.)

"The chef does not look very happy," he whispers to her as they slide into one of the booths. "Do you want to trust this place?"

"If he spits in our food," Lauren says, snapping open her menu with ease, "I can call the local office of sanitation on him."

"Fair, but please don't make him mad."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because he looks like he could be an assassin in another life."

"He can't possibly be that threatening, Will," she says, batting his arm playfully. She swivels around in her chair to get a look at the chef in the kitchen. "I'm sure you're just overreacting a little bit, that's all-"

Blue eyes, black hair. The chef that is currently sharpening butcher knives very loudly is staring right back at her, gaze boring right into hers. He's young, about her age, and seems to be relatively athletic - too athletic to be a Waffle House head chef of all things. Lauren was not expecting a prim and proper... _this._

A _this_ that stares and stares and star-

"Let's just get the waffles and leave," she mutters under her breath, turning back to her menu.

"You don't want the eggs?" Will asks, cocking an eyebrow. _"You?"_

"Fine, I'll get two runny ones. Fair?"

After a waitress is rung up, and Will orders his food alongside hers - Lauren is once again left in shock. She closes her menu shut, trying her best not to stare at the head chef again. "Thought you weren't a big eater? You usually just sit there and stare while I-"

"Physically embody the mirror image of an animal who hasn't eaten for days?"

"That."

"Well, he seems...interesting."

"Now who's testing who?"

"He may be an undercover assassin, Lauren. I do not trust this Waffle House chef."

"Will, it's going to be fine."

(Third mistake.)

When their waffles and Will's toast come along, Lauren is initially pleased. Nothing's burnt and nothing's overcooked, and she's just about to dig into her food when-

The head chef himself comes along and plops her plate of eggs on the counter. Unceremoniously. 

The eggs are also done wrong. 

They are scrambled.

_Kieran,_ reads his nametag.

She sees Will squeeze his fork so tightly it might burst, and Lauren discreetly brushes her hand against her boyfriend's as a warning sign. This must be a mistake; there's nothing she's done to warrant wrong eggs and a very, very judgemental stare-

No. 

On second thought-

"I'm sorry," she says, managing the biggest smile she can muster, "but I ordered runny eggs, not scrambled."

"I see," he says after what feels like ages. Is he actually _smiling_ at her? "I'll fix that."

"Thank you," she says, and releases a long breath after he exits their table, the tension dropping from her shoulders instantly.

"Laur-"

"It'll be fine, Will. See?" She smiles tightly at him. "Please do not kill the Waffle House chef. He is a _Waffle House_ chef."

(She should've killed the Waffle House chef.)

Seconds later, when Lauren is already through a quarter of her waffles, drizzled with a copious amount of syrup and butter, and Will is thankfully busied with his toast and butter - he's ordered sourdough, Lauren didn't want to object to his already dubious choices - the chef himself returns again, this time with another plate of eggs. Lauren is ten seconds away from thanking him again when she sees the eggs on the plate.

They are sunny-side up.

_Sunny-side up._

He is messing with her _eggs._

_On purpose._

(In hindsight, this should've been a warning sign, but despite Lauren's incredible intelligence, more than one of her colleagues had noted her emotional stupidity.)

(One of those 'colleagues' had been a criminal she'd been interrogating.)

"You...did understand me when I said I wanted runny eggs, right?"

"Oh, I did."

A part of her wants to heed Will's advice and snap the nametag off his shirt and strangle him with it. She does not heed that part of her brain - not yet, at least, and instead chooses to stand up, breathe, and negotiate.

"I-"

"Yes?"

"My eggs," she says slowly. "I wanted runny eggs. And if you think this is some sort of joke, it's not funny to me. Please, _please_ drop it."

Silence.

She wonders if Will will get out his gun and cause another scene.

"Got it," Kieran says, face blank like an eraser board wiped clean.

The weight of it all leaves Lauren's shoulders like a boulder tumbling down a cliff full of rocks. But the think is with rockslides is that they lead to more devastation, and possibly some torn-up roads and a bull in front of your beat-up truck, and so, ten minutes later, while Lauren and Will are already filled to the brim with frustration and food, Kieran decides to plop her eggs in front of her again. 

They are hard boiled.

Hard boiled.

_"HARD BOILED,"_ she shrieks, and the entire Waffle House comes to a stop.

Kieran is smiling at her. 

"Yes?"

Will cocks his gun. Kieran raises his spatula. Lauren's eyes zoom in on a broom the janitor is holding, currently wet with suds he uses to mop up the floor.

In a flash, she zips over to the janitor, muttering an apology under her breath, and carts the broom over her shoulders, dripping water onto the floor. It's no sword, but it does perfectly well as Lauren ducks Kieran's spatula attack and whacks him straight in the eyes with the hilt of the mop.

Someone has gotten out their phone to record.

"Can I get a waffle? Can I please get a waffle?" someone whines. 

He does not get a waffle, as Lauren is busy dueling the head chef.

"Are my eggs some sick joke to you?!" she shrieks, knocking aside his whisk. They've moved to the kitchen, now, and more people are whipping out their phones even as Will tries to stop them from recording the incredible fight going on between the head chef (currently carting a cutting board as a shield) and a cop (who has managed to a hold of a potato masher in one hand and a peeler in the other.)

"You don't like my eggs, officer?"

_"I'll kill you."_

"Ah, but the media-!" Kieran shouts, ducking as she hurls a pot at him. "This is violence against a hapless citizen! You're breaking the rules, darling!"

"You are not hapless, you swine-eating, egg-breaking, little piece of curd trash-"

"You're rather creative with names," the chef teases as she meets his frying pan with her potato masher. Someone in the background is still whining about their waffles.

"I declare you my nemesis," Lauren pants. "Until I get my eggs back, you're dead."

He shrugs. "Sorry, did you want fried-"

Kieran is cut short by her incoming potato projectiles.

____

(It's only the beginning for the two of them.)

(Three days later, Lauren comes in alone, wielding a carrot knife, yelling for a select head chef to come out and play.)

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @volonxite  
> ko-fi: [ here](https://ko-fi.com/obliviolunaiswriting)


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